I am working on making my novel ready for querying sometime this summer. It needs about 10-30K more added to it which brings me to a curious question.

What's the difference between editing and rewriting? Opinions? Go ahead, post them. I'm curious as to your answer.

I think editing is the final tweaking - grammatical errors, spelling errors and realizing that your character changes eye color five times in the course of a 75,000 word novel. It's definitely an important step but it is not the first one.

I made that mistake with my first novel, Her Testament to Life, (which I'm currently rewriting). I edited first and then decided to rewrite. Basically I wasted a revision on my own stupidity. I suppose that's how it goes with writing. You learn after the fact.

Rewriting, I believe, is more substance. It's retooling scenes, characters, places. Fleshing out the novel if it needs it and then, when all the actual substance is there, then you can go and do the actual editing process.